Hincapie holds of sprinters to take stage win

Photo: courtesy Wim Dingemanse

Photo: courtesy Wim Dingemanse

High Road’s George Hincapie saw off the sprinters to take an impressive victory on stage two of the Dauphine Libere. After making an ultra-fast descent of the final drop-down to the stage finish Vienne, the veteran American staved off the peloton for a hard-earned win.

“We were initially working for [team-mate] Andre Greipel for the sprint,” Hincapie, who moved up to fourth overall and took his first win since the last stage of the Tour of California, said afterwards. That’s why we were waiting for him until five kilometres to go and we were not going with any of the attacks.”

Then with three kilometres to go, it became clear that Greipel was not going to get back in time to dispute the sprint.

“We were going downhill at 70 kilometres an hour and [team sports director Allan] Peiper said ‘do your own race.’”

Hincapie said that he had started the eight-day stage race “a little bit sick - I’d got fatigue from training during the team camp in the Pyrenees and had no power in the prologue [on Sunday]. Today, though, I could see I was feeling better and I was going to do the lead-out for Andy [Greipel].”

“But then I went for Sebastian [Chavanel of Francaise des Jeux] before the last corner and had to do a big effort to catch him.”

“Then I rested slightly, sat on his wheel for 100 metres, and then came round and won. It was a great finish!”

Fifteen years a professional, Hincapie then discussed his role in the High Road team where “we have a lot of pressure because we are so successful.”

“Here I find myself doing a lot of lead-outs for the some of the best sprinters in the world, we have guys who can do time trials, we have guys for all sorts of different races. It’s a lot of fun and it’s very inspiring for me as an older pro to have such a great group of talented young riders at High Road to give advice to - not that I think they need much!”  

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